Fast Cancer on Demand

A little review of killing with radioactive poisons by communist leaders.

We're pretty careful with this stuff where I work. Feeding it to people is right out.

Time Out

As part of my moving towards 3-Gun or Multi-Gun shooting as part off my USPSA/IPSC hobby, I'm putting together a rifle.

I'm going for the Tactical division which lets me have one optic on the rifle, a shotgun with up to 8 shells in the magazine and a Limited class pistol. The rifle was the final component. Here's what I decided to start with:

Da rifle is a Bushmaster Varminter. Yes, I'm more concerned with my long distance shots than close in. So I've gone with a 24 inch barrel. I might add a compensator, but I want to try one with and without side by side before I add one. Yes it's a poodle-shooter .223, but I don't reload and I don't think I could afford to practice much with 6.8 SPC, 6.5 Grendal or 308 Win. I suppose once I got the lower shooting right I could add a 6.5 Grendal upper...and a long-distance scope. Hmmm, sweeeeet.

The rifle has a competition grip and trigger. I might want to add a JP trigger later, but for now I have a two-stage Bushmaster one.

The scope is a Leupold VX II 1-4x. I like the 1x cause I can keep both eyes open. Hopefully, this will translate into relatively fast close-in shots. I hope the 4x is ok for the 300 yard shots. I know it's mainly the shooter and not the scope...yeah well, maybe that's what I'm afraid of.

Oh well, I haven't been the worst one yet with a borrowed rifle. Maybe I can hide out in the middle for a while until I know what I'm doing.

I'm supposed to get two days off from work this week, so I can put it together---before I clean out the garage to get both cars in.

Take a seat

Recycled AK-47s...take a load off and lean back with the help of a magazine.

A couple o' links

Strategy Page is one of my favorite sites. It's a bunch of war gamers who look at the news feeds and rewrite them as "History."

Here's one on the uncontrolled women of Iran.

Here's one about the information war in the media.

Based on how Walter Cronkite spun the Tet victory and the almost total destruction of the Viet Cong into a defeat, we could credit old Walter with killing more Americans than Pearl Harbor and 9-11 put together by encouraging the North Viet Army---a pretty capable force. Walter used to be important, now he just works to keep electricity-generating windmills from being built off-shore of his vacation home.

An Embed Speaks

Here are the rest of the pictures from Ramadi.

Here's his report for the Daily Standard, but better on his site cause the pictures are in there along with video.

As you would expect in a static situation as our troops are exposed to in Iraq, sniping and counter-sniping are BIG. Our snipers are wining.

I've got a rifle and scope to set up as soon as I have a day off...

Family Snap

Young Saudi men in my dad's office referred to these as BMOs---for Black Moving Objects. You weren't supposed to take pictures of them over there either or the Religious Police would take your camera. However, duty-free shops in other countries used to sell cameras that pointed one way and took pictures in another.

No beer in Saudi, so I won't be visiting till civilization arrives.

No Tech Talk This Month

Well, it's early Wednesday morning and I've already worked 70 hours this week. Plus the Princess needs nursing. So I won't make the beer club meeting and won't have time to prepare a technical talk.

I barely have time to drink a beer (and only at 7 am).

No complaints though. It's tax-free week at Sportsman's Warehouse. Can you say "AR" fifteen times?

Meanwhile in Libya

If you pour three Pilsner Urquells into a liter mug, you can pretend you're somewhere else.

As our new Democratic masters settle in and go about signing death warrants for our light-dark friends in the Middle East---and probably for quite a few of us down the road---we move our gaze east where VDH is having a Libyan Holiday. You would think that a small country of six millions with all that oil would be doing well wouldn't you? Another indication that oil or any natural resource is not wealth in the modern sense.

Is it a coincidence that I have some books stacked that explore the '30s and the fruits of appeasement? Yeah, it's a coincidence---I already know what's coming for us---and I just like reading about what happened back then with some new volumes that have come out in the last decade or so.

How long is your rope?

Red Sea (Nov. 3, 2006) Explosive Ordnance Disposal 1st Class Christopher Courtney assigned to Explosive Ordnance Disposal Mobile Unit Six (EODMU-6), Det. 16 assist his team members during Special Purpose Insertion Extraction (SPIE) training from an SH-60 helicopter. The Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69) is deployed in support of Maritime Security Operations (MSO) and the global war on terrorism. U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Miguel Angel Contreras

I'm pretty sure that this would exceed my limits for adventure.

Pictures R News

John Kerry was caught on tape sounding a theme that he has espoused ever since betraying our country with direct negotiations in Gay Paris with the Viet Cong and North Vietnam: that if you are stupid you will get stuck in Iraq. I guess the troops in Iraq noticed they were being dissed. Kerry cracks me up---you can go to his web site and read his "honorable" discharge, but he assumes you are too stupid to notice that the date falls in the range of the Carter amnesty and not when he actually left the navy. Oh well, I'm sure he lost his original copy.

The Democrats should assign someone to sit on Kerry for a few weeks before an election. Maybe have Mama Heinz can take him home to meet the family in Mozambique or something.

On the other hand, maybe these Marine robots will go over there and introduce themselves...

I definitely want to be behind those mofos.

Choice

So, would you like to control CO2 emissions at huge cost for uncertain benefit, or give everyone sanitary drinking water for much less?

I think future energy efficiencies will do more to cut our CO2 production before controls that don't include India and China do.

In the meantime, let's enjoy CO2 by dissolving it in beer.

Forget manning the walls...

...the enemy is already inside ;^)

Fijordman has battled PC with regard to Islamofascists for several years. I find his essays frightening and entertaining. Here just in time for Halloween is Caucasophobia.

2nd Lt, Air Force, Typical

Second Lieutenant Kelly George was selected as Miss Arkansas USA during the state pageant Oct. 28 held on the campus of the University of Central Arkansas. Lieutenant George is a resident of Sherwood, Ark., and is the deputy chief of Public Affairs for the 314th Airlift Wing at Little Rock Air Force Base, Ark. (Courtesy photo/Rhonda Garrett Gilliam)

From Strategy Page.

Hotel Reporters

There are reporters who get real news from Iraq, but virtually all the news you see come from tarted-up windbags who complain because their "four star" hotel is really only a two star.

Business as Usual

You may think that the Islamic Terrorism being waged against us is peculiar, but it's just business as usual.

Someday we may be ready to deal with these people in the fashion that they need to be delt with.

I'm ready now, but I'm willing to wait. Hopefully, not to wait for a sword, forged in nuclear fire---before that please.

Flavored Beers

I'm mostly a malt and hops man when it comes to beer. Yet, I can enjoy a kriek or frambozen occasionally. Wit with its bitter orange and other spices is also nice early on a hot day. Outside Belgian classics such as these it is easy to go astray.

Popularity of flavored beers can now be measured by the introduction of chocolate beers by Miller and AB.

Quirky marketing move or sign of the Apocalypse? You decide.

1974

I was only 21 in 1974, but I remember all of this.

I don't want to repeat what happened in the 30s either.

Nut Brown Ale

It's time for our monthly beer club meeting, and we are talking about a megabrew. That's what we call it when we make a brewery-sized batch of wort and parcel it out in 5 gallon carboys for fermentation into beer at home. This time we are talking Nut Brown Ale. That's Samuel Smith brewery in the picture.

Now the first thing to consider is that in England where this style originates, nut brown refers to color. The beer is not originally supposed to have nuts in it. In brewpub parlance, however, Katy bar the door! Hopefully, the club will leave the addition of flavor extracts to individual brewer taste---and the secondary fermentation at home.

From the BJCP Guide:

10B. Northern English Brown Ale

Aroma:

Restrained fruitiness; little to no hop aroma. May have a caramel aspect to the malt character.

Appearance:

Dark golden to light brown color.

Flavor:

Gentle to moderate sweetness, with a nutty character. Balance is nearly even, with hop flavor low to none. Some fruity esters should be present; low diacetyl is acceptable.

Mouthfeel:

medium-light to medium body, with a dry finish.

Overall Impression:

Drier and more hop-oriented that southern English brown ale, with a nutty character rather than caramel.

History/Comments:

English brown ales are generally split into sub-styles along geographic lines.

Ingredients:

English mild ale or pale ale malt base with caramel malts. May also have scant amounts darker malts. English hop varieties are most authentic. Moderate carbonate water.

Vital Statistics:

OG: 1.040-1.050

IBUs: 15-30 FG: 1.010-1.013

SRM: 12-30 ABV: 4-5.0%

Commercial Examples:

Newcastle Brown Ale, Samuel Smith Nut Brown Ale, Adnams' Nut Brown Ale.

Newcastle Brown Ale uses maize to lighten the taste, which will be pretty typical of UK beers in general---sugar or corn. It will be difficult to get the same gravity and light taste with an all-malt beer. So, just lower the gravity to 1032-6 and call it a nut-brown mild.

A Sam Smith page.

If you want to make a big all malt nut brown, here's one, or replace a pound or two of the malt with maize.

Here's one for extracts with an awesome name.

See ya at the meeting (I hope).

Eco-Friendly

Someone from the Defense Department has helpfully drawn political boundaries on a satellite picture of the Korean peninsula in darkness. The one pool of light in the northern half is where Kim and his bestus buddies live.

I doubt this eco-friendly lack of light pollution can make up for all the burning to cook and keep warm, etc. An extortion racket blown up to country size is not pretty. Here's Kim getting all misty-eyed with a former Secretary of State:

Picture care of the Pillage Idiot.

In other news, a person was seen wearing both a Mao T-Shirt and a Free Tibet button.

Not Your Father's Thunderbird

She wears that jumper better than the guys do already.

Fun in Glock Land, Part 1

I uploaded the pictures as 1024x768, so if you click on them you can get a closer look--if you dare.

This COF start is similar to a start at Area 1, but they learned from that one and required our heels to be on the top surface. At Area 1 I was shooting Production (10 rd limit in mags, none forward of hip) so I had mags in the back that I removed. Thus, I was hanging out if I dropped a mag or other mishap. Here I was shooting Limited, so I only had mags on front and side. I faced that way to not be looking at the rising sun. Yes, I'm wearing a Glock hat. My Glock is lying loaded on the table. I suggested maybe an unloaded gun on the table and the shooter lying loaded on the bed---lucky I didn't get DQd for an alcohol joke, I guess.


I'm usually not this alert when I wake up, but it is because I was sleeping with my rose colored glasses on. The mesh walls are pretend impenetrable. Real solid walls have problems in the wind if they are not anchored real good.


Stay outta da way, she's gettin A. The Princess is in the slow and accurate phase I was in last year. It's a good phase. I probably need to go back into it myself in a while.


The pistol range is built around a cinder cone. So all the bays face into a mountain. Six bays have a covered area, which is probably a pretty good idea in that part of Oregon--but it was beautiful weather for us.

Here's a link to the stage design (it's a PDF).

From the totally cool planes department

OK, it's just a truck hauling around a radar test module for Global Hawk development, but... what a cool looking plane!

Hmmmm, smooth

Combining two of my hobbies, I'm drinking some of my kolsch beer (hoppy like it is in Koln) and looking at autoloaders on da web.

I think I need one of these. H&K doesn't seem to care much for us civilians, but they make damn fine guns.

Homeland Security picked this P2000SK as one of its chosen few.

I don't hold that against it.

How did this happen?

Holy Smoke! I got second on a stage against 75 other shooters, including a Grand Master and several Masters at the 2nd Oregon Glock-Only Championships.

Every once in a while my plan works, and this was a good example. The three steel targets were hidden behind the donut-gong. Since they were lined up and take time to fall, it was a matter of addressing the two paper targets in sequence with the poppers, starting with the first popper. They substituted a small USP at the end of the line, so it was only partially visible through the donut hole.

I shot it all with the minimum round count, so that explains why I did well, but it's a mystery why the faster shooters didn't overtake me.

Course what isn't a mystery is how I tanked on a few of the other stages, but I ended up slightly better than my classification percentage against the overall field and B level (I'm a C) in my division against a Grand Master. So, yeah, I had a great time. Hopefully, a picture post is forthcoming.

Time to Retire, all right

Is Kofi Annan a war criminal? Well the UK Times article doesn't fully answer, but makes obvious that being in charge during genocides in Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur does not affect ones promotability at the UN.

He made it all the way to the top--and the largest scandal in modern times: oil for food.

The poodle that is chosen to replace him will hopefully lead the relocation of the UN to Chad and not the multibillion dollar upgrade the their present digs in NY.

Kofi-caricature by Cox at Cox & Forkum.